Treat

 Just in time for the holiday I most hate, here are some bites from this week’s round up in PublishersMarketPlace.com that give me a scare: Witchy Woman!  From the Grammy Award-winning producer of Fleetwood, the ”cleverly” titled STARTING RUMOURS, an oral biography revealing the tempestuous  story of the making of Fleetwood Mac’s album “Rumours.” Oral indeed!  ADVENT [...]

Take a Meeting

One of my beloved clients allowed as to how he was hurt that I hadn’t written about him. Let’s correct that now. On Tuesday, he and I went to his publisher’s office for a meeting with the publicity and marketing people. Publishers will not always grant these meetings unless you are McKenzie Phillips. And sometimes, [...]

Priceless

The holidays are upon us and one reader wants to know: Could you spill all, please, on gifting standards for agents at Christmas/holidays? Like maybe a continuum, from just started working together, haven’t sent the mss out yet, to sold book one, etc. Dos, don’ts? Ask the assistant? This was too much for little old [...]

I’m Walking On Sunshine

My editor called today to say that she liked the work I did on the revision for The Forest for the Trees. Especially the ending. I no longer thought it worked, too overblown, but I kept moving paragraphs and sentences around like the wheel of a combination lock, hoping they would click into place if I got each [...]

Everybody Wants to Rule the World

When I pitched my first project, I developed a rash that did not abate until I sold it. The rash went from my hand up to my upper arm. The same thing happened with the next, and the next, and the one after that. My husband feared that all my commission was going to the [...]

How Will I Know If He Really Loves Me

Nation, check out this letter: I’ve had a Big Agent at one of the Best Agencies in NYC.   She wasn’t able to sell my novel, but I got to see the editor rejections and they all had nice things to say.  More than one asked to see something new from me.   My agent fired me [...]

You Can’t Handle the Truth

You know how Tom Cruise swings a bat to help him think in A Few Good Men? Well, here’s my secret: putty. Namely Silly Putty. I have a little red egg on my desk and I squeeze it in my hand when I talk on the phone. Sometimes, I roll the putty into a snake, coil it, [...]

All I Want Is For You to Make Love To Me

I sucked my last Hall’s Plus Lemon-Honey Advanced Vapor Action cough drop today. Actually, I sucked my penultimate Hall’s Plus Lemon-Honey Advanced Vapor Action cough drop today. I gave my last Hall’s to our assistant who is about to pitch his first book, throat scratchy, nervous. I told him to remember us when he gets [...]

Darkness Visible

It was easy to get responses to my first three surveys, so maybe I should stick with lighter fare: what publishers nosh, bad lunch dates, etc. This time, I surveyed a bunch of industry insiders and asked: how do you know if your book is going to tank and when do you know it. I got [...]

Find Out What It Means to Me

If you have a chance, check out this interview in Poets & Writers with Jon Karp, publisher of Twelve, an imprint at Hachette. It is a measure of how much I respect him and admire him that I recommend the interview because, well, look at how he answers the question regarding which agents he admires: There [...]